Rather than rejoicing in the euphoria of a stoppage-time winner away to Livingston on Sunday afternoon, the Rangers supporters went straight for Russell Martin after Max Aarons' last-gasp strike.
'Martin, get to f***' echoed around Almondvale as the head coach finally secured his first William Hill Premiership win – 115 days after his appointment. "When they’ve got the result and you still see the fans are really going for the manager afterwards, I think that’s hard to see," admitted former Rangers midfielder Kevin Thomson.
"If you've got any humanity in you, you don't want to see any other professional really suffer, but how they change that, how the manager changes that, how the staff changes that, I don't know. The only thing I know is if you win games of football it can change, but they've got a long, long way to go to try to change it.
"I don't ever want to see anyone suffer, I think we all love the game, it doesn't mean we've all got different opinions and you might not like somebody and you want to see them no day so well or whatever.
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"I just think for a club that's been great to me, whether as a player or opportunities since I’ve retired, you want to see the club do well as an ex-player, so it doesn't matter to me if it's Giovanni van Bronckhorst , if it's Michael Beale , if it's Steven Gerrard , if it's Russell Martin , you want to see the club do well, so naturally that means the manager's doing well.
"When you see them suffer the way they suffer, I feel for them because you have to do post match and pre-match media every week and when you're under pressure every word you say is getting scrutinised, you come out and say it wasn't very good but we won and we're happy and then you're happy to be sitting down the bottom of the league, you almost cannot win no matter what you say.
"I feel for him, but it comes with the territory, you're the manager of the Rangers Football Club, it's a big job, big salary, unfortunately you have to deal with the pressure. I think he's probably not enjoying it, if he can get through the other side it will stand him in brilliant stead, I said the same with David Gray going through that 12-15 game run where they were sitting at the bottom of the league and managed to turn the tide.
"I'm not so sure whatever Dave goes through in his managerial career he'll feel as low as he did when he went through that spell. Russell's probably in the same predicament at the moment."
Martin has spearheaded one of the worst starts to a season in Rangers’ history. Knocked out of the Champions League playoffs by Club Brugge 9-1 on aggregate, seven points adrift of Celtic , and nine behind league leaders Heart of Midlothian, the case for the 39-year-old to lose his job has gained momentum as the weeks have progressed.
Thomson, however, insists that the club's new American owners won't care what fans think. "These guys who are billionaires are not going to react to fans calling for X, Y or Z," he continued.
"They didn't become the successful people they are to get pushed about, really. The problem is that it's a really powerful fan base, and when you have thousands of people outside Ibrox and you're an owner and you see that it's the lowest attendance in seven or eight years or whatever it was in Europe.
"If they start to lose money, these guys can act quickly. People have told me that these guys are so instinctive and when things go wrong they change it quickly, but we could argue that's not been the case.
"I think if you ask the majority of Rangers fans they would want to see Russell and his staff go. Hopefully, I only say this through humanity, they can try to turn the tide and get some sort of run going, because if the next hiccup is just around the corner, then I would fear that the worst might happen."
With new billionaire owners providing a fresh start, many, including Thomson, thought Rangers would spend more than what they did in the summer transfer window. "I thought they would splash the cash," he admitted.
"But then I heard on the grapevine when they first took over that there wasn't quite as much ready available cash there. I’m presuming it will continue to grow. They spent a lot of money just in the window, but I think they'll either try to buy their way to success quickly, or it will be a slow process.
"Unless Andrew Cavenagh is sitting here in front of us, we're not really going to know what that process looks like. I think Russell has been well backed, I don't think he can sit there, and say that he's not had good backing and not had a good opportunity to try and put a good team on the pitch.
"I think with all the other Rangers managers in the past, whether it be Philippe Clement or Giovanni van Bronckhorst, they maybe didn’t quite have the backing but obviously that was a different board. The problem is, it's early. Fans hate that. They want to see results now.
"I think if he [Martin] had come in at Christmas time, then people would say he needs to sign his own players, you get to the summer, then you see many changes, but it’s the fact that he's had pre-season, and I think they're at 12 or 13 new signings now, and plenty of players have obviously left that he wanted rid of and they’ve brought in some money for them.
"I think that's the hardest part, that he's had pre-season. I look at Motherwell who play brilliant football, I look at Hearts who have recruited well and have a new manager. Rangers fans will look at opposition teams with smaller budgets and a wee bit more success and think, ‘How can they do it with fewer players than us?’"
The best Rangers teams in history intimidated their opponents. It isn't controversial to state that the current side has no fear factor. "It's horrible," says Thomson. "Look at Manchester United , it's horrible, isn't it?
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"If you're involved in it, I cannot think of being a Rangers player and going to any ground or any game apart from Champions League, but you had to walk on that pitch and that was one of my learning curves under Walter Smith: you need to walk on that pitch thinking you're the best player.
"It doesn't mean you are the best player because obviously you're playing against some of the best players in the world, so you know you're not as good as them, but if you walk on the pitch thinking you're not as good as them, you're beaten before you start.
"I always see the Manchester United guys talking about how they used to win games in the tunnel, and it's mad. I genuinely felt the same. Your games would be half twelve Saturday morning, you'd be staying in the hotel, you'd be eating chicken and pasta at half nine in the morning, you'd have a sticky throat, a horrible feeling.
"I cannot tell you how hard it is to be a football player, especially when everybody wants to beat you, but you have to find a way. At the moment, I would say if I were Livingston or if I were Hearts going to Ibrox – I watched Hearts warm up, I was there, and I'm thinking, ‘They fancy this today’.
"I’ve watched Cammy Devlin for the last five years, and I'm thinking, ‘I’d love a go at Cammy Devlin’, and I'm watching him boss the game at Ibrox, and I'm thinking ‘Eh?’ I love Cammy Devlin, I think he's a brilliant player for Hearts but I don’t think he should be munching into tackles at 88 minutes at Ibrox and winning 2-0, but he did. He’s coming to Ibrox thinking, ‘Oh, I quite like this’ and he shouldn’t."
Regarding recruitment, Martin and Rangers have been criticised for their recent use of the English market. Summer signings Aarons, Emmanuel Fernandez, Joe Rothwell, Youssef Chermiti, Jayden Meghoma, Thelo Aasgaard, Nasser Djiga, and Mikey Moore all came from south of the border.
Thomson worries whether these players have the mindset to not just cope at Rangers but be successful. "It’s such a hard thing," outlined the 40-year-old. "People talk about mentality and character, I wasn't the same personality at 25, 26 when I was leaving Rangers as I was when I was 21.
"I still believed in myself, we had a brilliant manager and a young, vibrant group, but Barry Ferguson was relentless, and he looked at you like, ‘Oh you’re on the same pitch as me?’ so you either shrink or you go, ‘Oh come on then, I want to have a bit of this’.
"If you didn't have that mentality within the changing room… I speak about looking around when I joined Ibrox, we had John Greig, Sandy Jardine, Coisty, Ian Durrant, Walter Smith, Jimmy Bell, Barry as the captain, so you're looking around and thinking you have to rise to the occasion, so where is that within the building?
"If you sign too many who maybe just want to come up and show a round, and some big hitters have come up through down south that have had great careers down there, and they've come up and found it difficult."
Rangers have a crucial pair of fixtures on the horizon before the upcoming international break. They travel to face Sturm Graz in Europa League action on Thursday evening before returning to league duty against Falkirk on Sunday afternoon.
• Chris Sutton, Kris Boyd and Steven Naismith feature as the hosts of The Warm-Up, William Hill’s weekly YouTube show and podcast. Check out the latest episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/@WilliamHillSPFL
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